This is what every white apologist dog whistles when it comes to the continued lack of diversity for games. This line of thinking takes opportunities away from black actors and keeps them out of big budget billion dollar franchises.
Forspoken Has a Black Protagonist But No Black Writers
- Thread starter Responsible Allen Iverson
- Start date
It's a video game. Outside of Hollywood blockbuster movies you aren't likely to make much voice acting. There's like probably less than 10 people in the video game lane of voice acting community that are really considered the stars of it.
Nolan North
Troy Baker
Matt Mercer
Laura Bailey
Yuri Lowenthal
Jen Hale
Tara Strong
Steve Blum
If we expand to 30 or so people you can damn near name everybody that gets most mainstream work in a video game. The same few people get most of the major roles. As a black man you not gonna blow up voicing video game characters. As a voice actor in general you gonna be hard pressed to make it doing video game voice work. If you look at them a lot of those people voice anime characters. When you get Troy Baker big you don't gotta do that anymore but Troy Baker is an anomality in video game voice work.
Pull Up the Roots
Veteran
So fukking what? Your dumb argument could be stretched to every industry. There's very little work for Black VAs as is. Black talent in those fields shouldn't lose out on voicing Black characters to white/non-Black people.
It wouldn't do any harm. The real problem is like I said there's a pool of about 30 some odd voice actors that get damn near every major role. Outside of that the roles go to one off actors that do that role and almost nothing else. So when Laura Bailey gets cast in that role that's the circular industry casting the same few voice actors in damn near every role.
I also think that limiting roles to people who share the racial makeup of the character is a problem because there's not that many black characters in any animated / game media so they would need to play roles that don't always look like them to get work.
What we saw as typical of that industry's problem in general. They do that shyt for every role so that character being black doesn't make the character a sacred cow.
That whole industry is basically just a bunch of the same few voice acting directors hiring their friends and people they work with all the time to fill the all the roles. That's why such a small pool of actors play most notable roles.
Really off the top of my head outside of Cree Summer I can't name a prominent black female voice actress anyway so they probably would have brought on a one off regular actress in to play the role who doesn't even typically do voice work. Kinda like how big Hollywood productions are overran with celebrity voice actors who don't even normally do voice work.
I'm wondering though what black women did they reject for that role?
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Also, you can’t get new black voice actors in the business if you refuse to acknowledge the roles you don’t give them. People hate on Horizon but they employed a lot of black actors for all their characters in that game and they’re not even american studio.
Angela Basset, Erica Luttrel, Lesley Ewen….there are entire voice actor unions with entire registries for actors to hire. No one cared that Laura Bailey brought her ‘star power’ to uncharted.
Its also why the actress who played Marlene in TLOU is now in the tv show because that opportunity was afforded to her to begin with.
Angela Basset, Erica Luttrel, Lesley Ewen….there are entire voice actor unions with entire registries for actors to hire. No one cared that Laura Bailey brought her ‘star power’ to uncharted.
Its also why the actress who played Marlene in TLOU is now in the tv show because that opportunity was afforded to her to begin with.
I'm old cause when I see that name I think MadTV. Didn't even know she was a prominent VA now. I remember her being in Ratchet and Clank though.Debra Wilson
You might not care but there are plenty of voice acting nerds that see her name and approve of her being cast in a project. She's in that club of the few people who get those same roles though. I doubt Angela Basset was in their budget.
I'm a voice acting nerd so I see it different from yall. I look up everybody in almost any voiced acted media I consume.
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Naw, this is you doubling down on your contrarian shyt, you don’t even believe what you’re saying. Laura Bailey being in Uncharted 4 did nothing to sell that game, established big games don’t need industry darlings to sell a game.
No one outside of a handful of nerds even recognize Jennifer Hale, Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Nolan North, etc. they just get grandfathered into every role because of who they know at this point. Theres nothing that says tehre aren’t just as many if not more talented black voice actors, and especially now with more diverse roles in gaming theres absolutely no reason they shouldnt be collecting checks.
Imagine if Deathloop used a white man to play Colt or a white woman to play Juliana. Imagine if a white man played Jin in Ghost of Tsushima, you think japanese/asian people would let that slide? Lol
And now we know you're full of shyt. You call yourself a voice acting nerd yet somehow you missed Debra Wilson being in the VA circuit for OVER 15 YEARS!
"i'M a VoIcE aCtInG nErD!"
"WhAt'S a BlAcK wAhMaN?"
Without looking at lists, she's been Storm, a part Star Wars, Wolfenstein, COD and played Amanda Waller. Major triple A franchises, background characters, quest givers, narrators, etc.
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Not only that but they actually use her likeness in mad games lol
Can’t be that much of a voice acting nerd if you’ve never noticed her in all these big AAA games lol
Warren Peace
Superstar
The funniest thing about this game when I first saw it was that it looked great until the characters started talking.
they need to just hire movie writers instead of these nerds trying to wing it.
they need to just hire movie writers instead of these nerds trying to wing it.
Gizmo_Duck
blathering blatherskite!
Gary Whitta is literally a movie writer though lol
